A changeling hive is much like you'd expect, and yet nothing at all like you'd expect. Changelings are base creatures that mimic others, are incapable of original or independent thought, are directly controlled by their Queen, the only sentient changeling in the hive, are worked from the day they mature to the day they die, feed exclusively on emotions like bloodthirsty vampires, kidnap ponies and place them in fleshy pods, and when they die of hunger or emotional deprivation, the use the carcass to make a new generation of changelings when the Queen lays eggs in it. Right?
Wrong.
Almost none of the above is true. Three words, however, were true. "Changelings," and "mimic others". Changelings are all independent beings.
The Queen is the highest authority of the hive, but does not give birth to any changelings except the next queen, and other princesses that will serve as generals, advisors, consorts, whatever the Queen needs of her sisters. She is much like a Minosian King.
The Queen does not control the changelings like mindless puppets. Each changeling is capable of independent thought, has their own personality, can be bad or good, kind or cruel, A or B, and is, in essence, a person, through and through. They even have a similar thing to Cutie Marks, though it is a mark for identification, not talent, due to the lack of genetic diversity in changelings.
Changelings do not kidnap ponies. This is, of course, not always true, like saying, "Minotaurs do not eat grass", because they are individuals, and there have been changelings that kidnap ponies, encase them in those cocoon things, and drain them dry of any emotions whatsoever. Changelings had not been observed to actually eat food for a very long time. The rumors started somewhere, see.
That covers how the preconceptions are wrong. Preconceptions are often followed by fiction, and fiction by what are usually rather entertaining stories and books. The most famous book to describe a changeling hive in fiction is 'The End Clock'.
Now, 'The End Clock' can be described some other day, what needs to be known is the changeling hive in the book.
"It was a cold, lifeless place. Like an unimaginative honeycomb, square holes were dug into the wall, coated with green, translucent, pulsating material, glowing as though it were in shade, not underground. Black shapes flitted about, only visible in how they blocked the light. There was a strange hissing filling the air. 'Who is this pony,' it seemed to ask, 'Why is he here?' I myself did not know." 'The End Clock'. Chapter 3. Blue Quill.
Blue Quill certainly did his research. While not exactly as he described, a hive is, in fact, quite similar. Minus the changelings milling about, the hive in 'The End Clock' matches an empty, abandoned, or 'lights out' hive almost perfectly. The differences are important to note.
A hive is built in many cubical rooms called Raine, which is the ancient changeling word for simply, 'room'. A Raine is exactly six meters in height, length, and width. The coating is put down, reducing size by a decimeter in each direction, resulting in a 5.8x5.8x5.8 meter room. When Raine are meant to have the same purpose, such as a hallway, or extended living room, or whatever, the wall between the two Raine is omitted, adding 5.8x5.8x.4 meters of area to the Raine per wall knocked down. All corners are kept in place as pillars, even if all the walls surrounding it are gone.
Doors are simply rectangles placed smack dab in the middle of a Raine wall, all exactly 1x2 meters, with a hole to insert the hoof and open or close door at the middle of one side or the other. Now, all of this seems extremely oversized, and it is, but for a reason. Changelings are much like insects, though their true origins are simply too convoluted and confusing to put to paper, and like to fly around like insects. Simple.
Now, warehouses are huge, but no way are they huge enough to support a hive, which undoubtedly has at least a thousand changelings, each with their own bathroom, and living room, and kitchen, and bedroom, each of which must be at least 1 Raine in size. Normally, that would be true.
Warehouse 3 is different. It is the size of the other thirty six Warehouses combined, minus warehouses 4, 5, and 6. It was made specifically FOR the hive. Of course, changelings aren't the only race living in the hive, as the occasional pony or griffon found inside will make evident, but they are by far the majority that live there. Warehouses 4, 5, and 6 are for the other races, which have less space each, but are not only far larger than normal, but surpass Warehouse 3 by far when combined.
Changelings are REALLY frickin' weird.
======
That's the vibe Twilight gets from Lightning, who she learns is NOT, in fact, adopted, but the actual, biological, oh, hey, Cadance is pregnant, CHILD of Chrysalis and Cadance.
The Shining that Twilight remembers would have a seizure.
Nobody in the fortress ever wants to talk about him, she gathers, and eventually comes to the conclusion that he went out in some embarrassing way, and didn't want his little sister to remember him like that. She nods to herself, filling with pride for her detective skills.
Lightning sends a glance her way, but shakes her head, leading onward through Warehouse 2. "The strangest warehouse," She had told Twilight, and she has to agree. The lack of gravity is rather disconcerting. Still, she's gone through worse, at least in her mind, with Discord's pranks.
And that one time she visited his house, which she will never speak of.
"DISCORD! How am I supposed to eat when THE FOOD IS ON THE CEILING?!"
"YOU are on the ceiling, Twilight!"
Anyway, the entrance to the hive is only a short distance from them now, and Twilight almost sags in relief, but she has to jump across an inexplicable gorge to reach the door. A triviality, if she still had her wings. Now, though, she has to charge her teleport to get over.
Lightning taps Twilight on the horn, cancelling the spell before she can go, and shakes her head. She points out a bridge over the gorge a bit to the left. "Still," Twilight asks, "The teleport was almost done, why'd you cancel it?"
Lightning glances at the bottomless pit behind Twilight. "Magic doesn't really work in here. You might've fell in, gravity tends to turn back on over pits," Lightning explains, "This room is the barrier between the civilian housing and the main fortress. It helps protect them in case of invasion."
"And the hive?" Twilight asks, moving towered the bridge.
"Is mostly civilians. Momma Chrysalis never had many soldiers. Against the former Equestrian military, a squad of civilians would have a decent chance, but against mindless thralls that cannot be tricked or frightened..." Lightning shrugs.
"You were helpless?" Twilight suggests as they cross. Lightning hesitates, seems to weigh her options, and nods.
"Pretty much."
Twilight sags at that revelation. The armada that had nearly leveled Canterlot, dream or no, stands no chance against Nightmare. She can almost feel her hopes get stabbed. She swallows thickly as the manage their way over to the door.
"Prepare yourself, Twilight, for green, and lots of it!" Lightning gushes, even as Twilight turns back to the purple and chartruse foliage behind her. The oddly not green plant-life makes her smirk.
"Green is good."
======
As it turns out, Twilight is a fucking liar. Green is most certainly not good. The instant she saw the green, hard slime, her nerves started to fray. She finally snapped smack dab in the middle of the hive when a changeling walked up to her and asked, humorously enough, for her autograph.
She curled up into a ball, horrified and weeping, right in the middle of a hive of changelings. If the unstable emotions coming off her weren't awkward enough, the sobbing purple ball in the middle of their home was more than enough to make the changelings feel uncomfortable in a big way.
Eventually, Chrysalis got involved, and Twilight was reduced to scrambling away, nickering and whinnying like a barbarian in an unseeing, unthinking, unreasoning panic, leaving her body almost completely run by instinct. Needless to say, both Lightning and her mother were left feeling somewhat uncomfortable, even more-so than the other changelings since Twilight's reaction was directed at the two.
They tried a hundred things. Nice, not nice, sorta nice, really not nice, bribe-like, blatant bribery, and a couple other strategies all failed to console her, or even calm Twilight down slightly. Now, Twilight is still sobbing fearful in the middle of the hive, everyling is feeling really unsure about themselves, and the one who asked for an autograph is sulking in the corner, feeling rather chastised and useless.
Cadance is rushing through the anti-gravity warehouse as quickly as possible, medical personnel in tow, which is unfortunately not very fast, leaving the panicked are to herself with the changelings, the scary, fangy, chitiny, love eating... y... CHANGELINGS, where she is feeling rather inclined to panic, sob, and then panic some more.
"Shh, Auntie Twilight..." Lightning strokes the troubled mare's mane, "It's gonna be okay." The sobs intensify, and the wave of negative emotions nearly knocks Lightning back physically.
"NO IT ISN'T!" Twilight wails, curling up tighter, "I'm surrounded by shapeshifting bugs that are gonna wrap me up in a cocoon and eat me!" The concern disappears from everyling's faces, replaced by a rather offended look.
"Twilight, you're being racist. I'm half changeling, Momma Chryssie is a changeling queen, and you've been surrounded by changelings for hours. If we were gonna do something, we'd have done it by now."
"Uh uh!" Twilight argues, curling up tighter, "I've seen it, Changeling LOVE to play with their food! Just when I let my guard down, WHAM! That's when they'll get me!" Lightning and Chrysalis blink, and the large changeling turns to her subjects.
"It seems," the regal changeling begins, "That our savior has been the victim of some terrible nightmares, no doubt inflicted upon her by Nightmare Moon." She sighs heavily, glancing backward at the mess of fur behind her, "She is not being racist, merely paranoid." Almost every changeling gives a sympathetic wince, and those who don't nod their understanding. "Indeed, it would be best if we were to give her some space, likely with my daughter, who she will likely be the most comfortable around."
Slowly, Chrysalis ushers the changelings all away from the sobbing mare, and the center of the warehouse, all the while Lightning sits beside her, awkwardly stroking her mane and shushing her. "Gods," Lightning mutters, "I hope the nurses get here soon."
======
"Cady I don't know what to doo-hoo-hoo..." Twilight sobs into her former foalsitter's shoulder. Cadance pats the lavender mare's shoulder, trying to sympathize with her as her wife and daughter sit awkwardly a few yards away.
"I know, Twily..." Cadance tells her in a soothing voice, while the doctors stand smugly to the side. Cadance already made it very clear that they aren't allowed to say anything, but they know, deep in their medically trained little hearts, that they were right and she was wrong.
"I... I... I should have just been left there..." Twilight mumbles, "I should've been left to my illusion. Now I have to deal with changelings... and Nightmare Moon... and Sombra... and probably Diamond Dogs and Tirek if things are going the way they look... Heck, I'll bet Discord is on Nightmare's side, just making things worse." Cadance pulls a flat look, staring into Twilight's eyes.
"No, we need you. You're an Element of Harmony, and when we find the others, we'll be able to beat Nightmare. You just have to believe." Twilight is less than inspired by Cadance's reassurances. She looks away, pawing at the dirt.
"I don't think we can. She beat us at her weakest, and now she's so much stronger. What chance do we have?" Twilight sighs, lying down, and letting the tears flow. "What can we dooo...?"
"You can suck it up," A doctor steps forward, light green coat nearly blending with the surrounding architecture, "and make tomorrow a better day. We have an enemy that has numbers, but highly outdated military tactics. We may lack numbers, but our military tactics have been bumped up to much higher levels in the past few years."
His black mane contrasts nicely with his coat, making for a more imposing figure when he says, "We have the ability to infiltrate a highly reinforced base and wreck it from the inside out. We can take the plans straight out of any captured officer's head. We can go to other bloody dimensions seeking help. We can do this, Ms. Sparkle. You just have to believe."
Twilight feels guilt flood her system for two reasons. Her sister-in-law (sorta) had tried for half an hour to comfort her to no avail, yet this doctor she doesn't even know the name of managd to make her feel better. The other reason is that, dream or no, she was an Alicorn princess, and she should be better than this.
Her head sinks to the floor, and she gives her feeble apology, "I'm sorry. You're right. I should just... keep moving forward, right? And we'll beat Nightmare, and we can all have our happily ever after. What's left of it to have, anyway." The doctor's eyebrows shoot above his maneline. He hadn't expected to be able to inspire a mare a good five years older than him, nor had he expected to do so when said mare didn't even know him.
Still, in the high of the moment, he turns to the pink former princess, and smugly informs her, "I told you, logic people respond to logic, and Twilight Sparkle, personal Protegee of Princess Celestia Herself, is a logic person." Cadance frowns at the doctor, who nervously turns away and clears his throat, "Ahem, of course, your emotional method may have weakened her depression's grip on her?" He smiles unsurely, eyes darting left and right.
Cadance huffs in annoyance, draping a wing over Twilight, and pulling her close. She turns to meet Twilight's amethyst eyes, and smiles softly. "We'll be okay, Twilight."
"So... you still wanna learn about changelings?" Lightning cuts in to the emotional moment. Everyone turns to her with a deadpan stare, except for Twilight, who giggles imperceptibly. "What? I brought her all the way here to tell her about changelings, and dang it, I've hardly said a thing!"
======
Emerald Grease is still riding that high from being right when the two hundred plus year old princess is wrong. He's feeling rather proud of himself over this as well, in fact, he might add it as an addendum to his research logs. Maybe a title. Emerald Grease, Bs., Ms., Phd., and Princess Cadance Correcter. Rolls right off the tongue.
The professional Pegasus had been quite clever in his deduction that a tactical approach to the situation would reach Twilight better than an emotional one could ever hope to achieve. Arrogance doesn't suit him well, he has to remind himself, as arrogance leads to death; confidence to greatness, but arrogance to death.
Still, it isn't like he can't preen a bit over being right when someone over five times his age was wrong. After all, not many people are over 150 years old, and he managed to correct one of them. To think that he, a mere pegasus, could outsmart an immortal, is sheer insanity, yet an insanity that took place.
He still can hardly believe that he and his colleagues, all coming to the same conclusion separately, would be right, when the immortal that knew the subject best was wrong. It's almost chaos it's so unlikely, so unexpected, some might even say ironic, that something like this could take place.
Who doesn't like the idea that in the past three years they went from the height of Equestrian military knowledge to the average of human military knowledge? Certainly Twilight doesn't fit into that category, she loved that news. Score one for Emerald.
Emerald suddenly realizes that he's been congratulating himself on his unofficial victory for seven minutes, blushes at the thought, and throws himself back into his work before anything else can grab his attention and delay him. Such as more arrogant thoughts.
======
Screwball has not been having a great day. Yay, Twilight's up, but can she see the supposed future world saver for herself? No, she has to stay here and make sure these recruits do their laps. She sighs to herself, wishing that gaps would stop opening and stop needing to be filled.
If soldiers would stop dying, she wouldn't have to replace them so much. If she didn't have to replace them so much, she'd be able to work on improving the dream wards and cloaks. If those go obsolete or fail, all life on their last base will go out like a light.
To think that not even twenty years ago, she was just a thought, is humbling. Not humbling enough to get to Screwball, though. She glares at the lagging zebra, who opens her eyes wide and starts hoofing it harder than Screwball had seen her go all day.
She zones back out of full focus, and ponders how to introduce herself to Twilight. "Hi, I'm a chaos monster that looks like a pony!" Yeah, no. "Hi, I'm a chaos NOT-monster that IS a pony!" Umm... no. "Hi, I'm Screwball, I served with your son, he was a good man." Much better.
Diamant is lagging really far behind, Screwball notes as she comes back to reality, and blows her whistle. "OI! BITCH! PICK IT UP, LASSIE! RUN RUN, OL' YELLER!" She hollers at the dog, who quickly meets up with the rest of the group.
Yes, things are going nicely for Screwball, good day or not. She just has to wait. And suffer the incompetence of the recruits. "AY! PICK UP THE PACE YA PRISSY, PANSY PRINCESSES! I'VE SEEN FASTER SNAILS!"
======
"So the hivemind is a... server?" Twilight asks, relating the MIND to her limited computer knowledge. Chrysalis nods with a small smile, happy with Twilight's understanding as Lightning tinkers in the far corner of the room.
"Yes, we store data on the MIND, and we can send messages through it or access it freely. If you aren't a changeling, there's a techno-magical chip that you can have implanted in your brain to give you the ability to access it." Twilight frowns.
"Sounds dangerous." Chrysalis gives a solemn nod, and Twilight, feeling she may be approaching an uncomfortable subject, changes the direction of their conversation.
"So, if we're both here to get to know each other better... why don't we start with introductions?" Twilight smiles unsurely. "Ahem," She clears her throat, and takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly.
Time to introduce herself to one of her most hated enemies on a blank slate, a fresh start with the monster that nearly wrecked Cadance and her brother's wedding. She shakes the thoughts away, careful not to take the action too literally. That was just a dream. This is now real life, and whether it's fun or not doesn't matter, nor does anything that happened in the dream. Time to make a friend.
"My name is Twilight Sparkle. I'm... 37? Years old, I love books, and I was Princess Celestia's pupil before she disappeared. I wield the Element of Magic, and I have a son," Her face falls, "but he's in a coma..." She shakes her head, and nods to Chrysalis with a soft smile.
"Ahem," the large insectoid clears her throat in a similar manner to Twilight, psyches herself up, and introduces herself. "My name is Queen Chrysalis of the Emerald Tribe. I'm 103 years old, I take great pride in the state of my subjects, and I was taught strategy by my mother, though it comes little in handy with zombies." She frowns at that, obviously unpleased at the uselessness of her education, "I wielded a powerful artifact known as Antithesis for ten years before it was stolen by Nightmare Moon, and I have two daughters. You've met Lightning, but Nymphadora is in deep cover, at her own insistence, in the Nightmare Allegiants, the only self-aware soldiers in Nightmare's army."
Twilight's eyes rise, out of her control. "Impressive daughters," She comments, thinking about the infiltration of Canterlot, "It must be hard for her to mimic some other pony." Chrysalis shakes her head with a gentle smile, one filled with pride.
"No, no, you see, each Tribe of Changelings has a special ability, and only rarely are new tribes born. Nymphadora is the first of a new tribe, and her presence will cause more Thunder Tribe to be born. Thunder Tribe has the ability to create unique forms, rather than simply copy, then summon from memory." Twilight's eyes are like saucers. "What separates them from the Ruby Tribe of the same ability, is that Thunders can be any race, even dragons."
At that point, Twilight's jaw is practically on the ground. There is so much she wants to ask. How is that possible, why does this happen, how does it work, what are the odds, and so many other things. They are all drowned under one thing, however.
"Nymphadora? That's a nice name." Chrysalis smiles back at Twilight's gleeful, friendly grin. She may not be the Princess of Friendship anymore, but Twilight still knows what she's doing.
======
Everyone's quarters are relatively austere, Twilight is coming to realize, and Lightning's room is more the result of tinkering than the result of any design. The quarters are extremely basic, yet still have a homey feel. Stone or no, a Living Room, Kitchen, Bedroom, and Bathroom are all important parts of a home, and with the comfortable looking design of each bit of furniture, it's quite nice.
The living room is about what you'd expect of a living complex. Small, has a couch and a couple chairs around a coffee table and a fireplace before it, a bookcase to the side. The wood has a pleasant reddish finish and a glossy look, making it feel modern yet traditional.
The Kitchen is entirely white tile except the ceiling. The cabinets run all along the upper wall, the tables all along the lower, and there is a refrigerator, a stove, an oven, a toaster, and a sink, all stainless steel, ready to be used and make some yummy breakfast, or whatever meals are called in a world of eternal night.
The bathroom is what you'd expect, wallpaper, white ceiling, tile floor, toilet, shower/tub, sink, medicine cabinet, and so many other useful, bathroomy things. Twilight felt rather excited to see that there was a book of trivia on the toilet, some light reading for when you are otherwise occupied. She's a bit embarrassed about that now, though, as she sits in the chair next to her bed in the bedroom, opposite the bedside table, and facing the desk, upon which lies a journal, that she is now writing about her day in.
'...seems to be a nice filly, if nothing else, though she is quite eccentric, and a bit full of herself, a lot like Rainbow Dash. I miss my friend, but everypony is convinced that she's still alive, so I'm more than willing to wait to rescue her with a plan, than just randomly break in to Nightmare's fortresses and look for her.'
Twilight taps the inkless tip of her quill to her face, and then licks the end, and dips it in the inkwell.
'I hope for the best, though it is unlikely that I'll be the same when I walk away from this. Spike has killed thousands, apparently, and I don't think that's sunk in yet. It's a bit morbid, but I'd say the phrase, 'One death is a tragedy; a hundred is a statistic', fits well here. Maybe if I were there, I'd feel something about it, but aside from a small amount of disbelief at the numbers, I don't feel anything.'
Twilight feels the breeze through a window, looking over to it, and shutting it with her magic. She makes a mental note to ask exactly why the warehouses had weather systems when they aren't necessary there.
'Maybe it's because he's a dragon, and I've always known deep down that he's capable of great destruction, and massive deaths. Maybe it's because I'd do the same if our situations were reversed. Maybe it's because, despite my breakdown, I'm still not fully believing that this is real.'
Twilight sets the quill down and turns to stare out the window. The apartment complex that fills the warehouse has many strange things scattered throughout, such as gardens, ponds, sometimes even shops. It all comes together, looking like a town carved out of a cliff side, rather than town built in a supernatural subspace pocket dimension.
'I've only been without him for a day now, so it hasn't really hit me that he's gone. I keep thinking that he'll walk around the corner with a comic, or a letter from Celestia, and he doesn't. But it doesn't matter. I'll get him back. That's a promise.'